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The Future of MMORPGs
Fargo writes: "How often do you get the creators of EverQuest, Asheron's Call, World of Warcraft, Dark Age of Camelot, Star Wars Galaxies, Anarchy Online, and others in the same room together? It happened at the recent Game Developers Conference in San Jose. GameSpy pulled together notes from three days' worth of talks and drew some common conclusions that point toward where the genre is going in the future. A good read if you're interested in where Virtual Worlds are headed."
And here it is:
Progress Quest
Its not too addictive and it doesn't use up too much time.
t
If you look at the picture of all those guys lined up beside eachother you could swear it was taken in the 1970's.
Where text muds went 10 years ago. All the problems of grief players, player killing, user grouping, experience sharing, and dynamic landscape generation were solved in text based MUDS like this one years ago. Watching the graphical corporate players re-learn these painful lessons (with the added humor factor of corporate arrogance, pride, and a PR department) has had all the humor value of watching a blind baby learn to walk.
If you find that kind of thing funny.
Sure, people do "play for the spreadsheet, filling in points", etc, but the real draw of a good game is it's roleplaying value - at least for me.
I've been playing a Text MUD for quite a long time - Dragonrealms (http://www.play.net/dr) - and it's evolved into quite a large player base where anyone can make a mark on the community by roleplaying a character correctly.
Hundreds of addicts, or just hundreds of satisfied people? Not sure, but the Roleplaying Genre needs to focus more on roleplaying, least we end up instead with the "experience-game-in-which-players-gain-levels genre".
I've been playing UO on and off for about 5 years now. I tried EverQuest for a while, and although I could see how one could get into it, I still liked UO better.
...but that's just my 2 cents, and that's about all it's worth.
However, both companies still have an advantage over all the newcomers--they have a game engine that they have been tweaking for a long, long time. I think that when the new generation of these MMORPGs come out and drag players away from UO/Everquest, Origin and whoever makes Everquest (I forget) will wise up and start selling an engine to the next generation of MMORPG makers so that they can implement a (hopefully) more debugged game more rapidly. It just seems logical; when your itellectual property stops making money in one arena, move to another...
The problem with MMORPGs right now is the players can't shape the world. It would be so much fun if players could build cities, destroy cities, take power over a nation, remove a person from power, eliminate an entire species of animal, etc. Sure at times you'll have things unbalanced, but as long as you have methods to rebalance it shouldn't be an issue (like destroying a boulder that stopped a river). Also it would be nice missions involved more than one person. For instance the game could give a high level character a mission that would take too long for him to finish by himself, but he could hire lower level people for a negotiated reward to help him along.
;)
But like all people on slashdot I only have ideas and no plans to actually implement the crap I think up.
I've always wondered why the 'supervillain' players aren't just allowed to be supervillains... Some gameplay addition that gives them a fatal flaw, or restricts them to certain 'evil lands' when they PK. The 'good guys' could then search dungeons (after finding out about the fatal flaw at the local tavern/wise man) for the 'special thing' needed to kill the evil PKer. (note: the dungeon would be off limits to the PKer, and probably anyone 'evil' and just contain monsters and the such)
It'd be just like the predictable, mediocre plotlines of soo many stories we all love and enjoy. The PKers are happy that they can PK people foolish enough to enter their wicked realms, and the good guys can go off and fight 'eeeevil' (for great rewards of course)
What seems to be lacking for me is a real sense of accomplishment. Leveling up is not fun in and of itself. The quests I do must actually matter to the game world. The game should change because of what I do. I should have other options besides fighting to earn credits. The classic game of Pirates! comes to mind. I want to be a trader sometimes, also a politician if I desire. Not just a patron, but I want government, and generals, military commands and so on. Neocron has some of these ideas.
Unfortunately what I want is like ten games in one. But that's exactly what every company must strive for. Releasing the hack and slash game, followed by the trading game, followed by the political game, followed by the military/bounty/mercenary/thief-type game. Last but not least, if the world has horses or cars, there needs to be a racing game, not just on tracks, but street races. All of this must be available together and integrated.
I know I ask the near-impossible, but if the game makers want me to devote my real life to their virtual world for years to come, shouldn't their world be at least as interesting as reality?
This article raises a number of interesting points. Not the least of which, is what are these things? Are they games, of other worlds of existence? A place for enjoyment, or a metaverse of sorts?
In my mind, they need to evolve beyond games and give users a reason to take part rather than stat building and killing progressively larger monsters. As a beta tester for Ultima Online, and short term user of several other systems I can tell you that gets boring real quick.
The problem, as I see it, is how to deal with that small percent of the population who want to just cause trouble for everyone else. Pkilling, newbie killing, etc will always be something people want to do. The key is to protect people from it while not breaking the suspension of disbelief that gets us so caught up in the world, and still allowing these sorts of things for those who want to take part.
Can you imagine how boring the metaverse would be if Hiro Protaganist just slashed through all the black and white avatars, simply because he could? That wouldn't go far to lure new users.
To continue the metaverse analogy, allowing users to carve out their own niche is a real bonus. MUDs, MUSHs, etc. have almost all had some capacity to allow the players to build the world. The metaverse allows people to create homes, buildings, hell even the Black Sun.. but in MMORPGs so far that feature has been poorly implemented. UO allows for building houses and hiring shopkeepers, but the former just cluttered the landscape, while the latter became pack animals for most players.
In short, this article asks some good questions. I can't think of any easy answers to any of them, but it's good to see people discussing this in an open forum.
Wow. Throw some heavy-duty padlocks on that door and you'll have just increased geek productivity by about 800%.
And if they start asking for food and water, just tell 'em to /petition it...
This article is excellent, and I particularly enjoyed the intelligent focus on copyright and intellectual property issues as MMOGs slide towards greater and greater online content. Admittedly, I haven't played an MMOG since the Tradewars days, but the idea still fascinates me. The most thrilling idea surrounding this topic as far as I am concerned however, is that of inter-game compatability. It seems only a short matter of time before, at first multiple games by the same company, but eventually games by competing companies, support the transfer of characters and wealth between game worlds.
From that point I can imagine very easily that the drive towards standards and cross-compatability would result in the creation of a standardized "meta-game" in which characters could interact devoid of any rules or constructions aside from user created content and the "laws of physics" of the virtual world. Some users, of course, would become massive creators of original content in effect turning their corners of the meta-game into games in their own right(whether free or requiring an admission fee). Of course the commercial games would still exist and could be easily entered at any time from the meta-game, but the meta-game itself would provide the perfect level for many types of interactions and for encouraging a seamless gaming experience.
There is only one small step left from there to envision this meta-game expanding to include near-infinite non-game content and eventually replacing what is now WWW-space with an avatar driven virtual world such as that envisioned in Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash.
Of course, everything i have just said is speculation and supposition, but my real point is that what is going on in the world of MMOGs may be something that warrants attention even from those who aren't gamers themselves. People may one day talk about EverQuest the way people to day talk about an old DoD project called ARPANet...
lysergically yours
I worked in online gaming from 1992 to 1998 and we built a MMORG that never got to see the light of day.
During it's development it suffered from many of the things mentioned in this article.
(1) was it a game? No one knew, it ended up being made into an interface for our other previously developed games (like Spades and Poker and Bass Lake Fishing). The RPG aspect and personal space customization were to be done later, after this was decided. So the answer was, no it wasn't a game.
(2) it's for adults more than kids, and at the time people still thought only kids played video games (ooops, kids grow up and... still play)
(3) we were hot enough to be bought by AT&T and then AOL... ug, death!
(4) finally, we were around before the (commercialized) net and had a you-have-to-build-it-yourself mentality. This is not a "not invented here" syndrome, when we started making network games in 1991, you really did have to build it yourself. Email, chat, everything. We didn't survive all the help we would get, and never leveraged the explosion of the net to our advantage... instead it was a sort of tsunami that swamped us.
(5) Violence: it sells, the 3d "revolution" in games is associated with it. Making a peaceful game hedging on community and social play, construction exploration and politics... why, it's a hard sell now, it was even harder then. Thank god for the Sims for opening this up a little, potentially.
BTW: I still remember how to make these things... our technology could support tens of thousands of people on the hosts where there was no limit to packing, but you saw only the closest couple hundred people. It sits unused, now owned, I think, by EA. The hosts are in use for non-mmorg use, oddly enough. Inside these hosts people playing mundane card games have existence in a 3D world because the message passing paradigm is great... but they don't move in the 3D space and essentially sit in a matrix keeping track of an unpresented 3D position in the world.
-pyrrho
When I first stepped into Everquest, it was magical. This was the first online game I had tried and it was simply amazing that there was an actual person on the other end of that halfling.
While the magic and novelty is largely gone, I can't help but think that these MMORPGs are destined for the business world. Five years ago all I heard about was the coming virtual reality - meetings in cyberspace... working from home with an avatar in a virtual meeting room.
Well, I've been playing in one of those for the last year or so. With some minor tweaks and feature enhancements, this technology is ripe for virtual/avatar-based meeting spaces. Instead of logging in to the goblin city, I'll enter a building. My conference is going to be in the third door on the left (the door will be pulsing softly and there will be arrows pointing the way from reception).
I'll enter the room and the people I'm going to meet with will be there also. I can look at the "screen" and see the presentation, whisper to the person next to me... or the person at the other end of the table for that matter, raise my hand, whatever. I might even be able to have my macro script take control and nod appropriately so I can nip off to the mall and do some shopping while it records the presentation for me.
Yes, this is years down the road, especially for it to become an accepted business practice... but it will start with someone convincing their boss that the next staff meeting should be held in the North Freeport tavern or the Inn of Rivervale. Once it does happen, it will do more to eliminate the need for employees to be in the same place as their employers...
And that will be pretty cool.
Slashdot comments... splitting hairs since 1997.
So let me get this straight, you pay $50 for the game, then $12.95 every month? And how long have you been playing now? *ching ching*
Never fight naked, unless you're in prison...
I actually prefer StatBuilder. It's got a lot more stats!
- signed, a lvl 154 statbuilder character -- you cannot comprehend how high my tree-climbing stat is!
Where's the submit button??
The central focus of all MMORPGs is the economy, and so far all of them have weak or artificial economies. The rewards of playing stem from the game economy and in order to be truly compelling the economy has to be robust and realistic. Take EQ for example. The economy is really driven by two things - experience (which can't be traded) and equipment, all of which exist in essentially unlimited quantities. Spend enough time and you can get everything the world has to offer.
What is needed is an economy that motivates people to cooperate and simultaneously drives conflict. Think RTS combined with RPG. There should be certain resources that are finite in availablity, but necessary for progress. To get the resources you need you can either find them, buy them, or steal them. To help this along there should be factions or groups to which you can belong and from which you derive certain benefits that help you get the resources you need. This sets up a natural conflict between competing groups vieing for the same limited pool of resources. You are effectively forced to ally with others in order to achieve your aims, since it is easier to defend your resources when you group together. In order to get some resources, it might be necessary to pool resources, for example to get enough cash to purchase a piece of equipment that enhances resource production. You would essentially be investing in an enterprise and expecting a return on that investment. The game could even support a stock trading system in which you could invest in various enterprises based on your interests and desires.
Once you have an economy figured out, everything else comes together. You don't need to provide monsters or quests, since the dynamic of the game creates them all on its own. You get people working with or against each other, which is what it should be about anyway. Other humans are going to be far more interesting and challenging opponents or allies than any AI creature.
-Vercingetorix
"Necessitas non habet legem." -St. Augustine
I'm going to disagree, but not for the reasons you might think.
The true jump in quality won't come from masses of gamers deciding in unison that, yes, I feel like pretending to be a sweaty dwarf named Argus McGinley of the Axehandle Clan today -- or whatever one's idea of traditional role playing might be.
Rather, it'll arrive when these online worlds become immersive/enjoyable enough that you don't even have to think about role playing. Not consciously, at any rate. That is to say, as these games evolve and their in-game mechanics grow to be more fluid and natural (instead of the hundreds of little annoyances -- zone loads, clipping bugs, slash commands -- that constantly remind us of a game's limitations), a majority gamers will begin to act more naturally within them.
Setting influences behavior, in a sense.
I was sort of amazed at the line about making users who only play 5 hours a month feel involved or meaningful to the game universe. I can't imagine an entertainment persuit less suited to extremely casual commitment than RPGs of any variety. This is particularly true for the medium in discussion, which continues to run 24/7. If you're in a D&D group, at least the action stops when you go home. MMORPGs inherently only appeal to people with a fairly particular interest and a high level of commitment. For goodness' sake, the whole point is to *immerse* yourself an another universe! How do you immerse in just 5 hours? ;-)
Most developers agreed that in small communities you can rely on the user base to police itself. But large-scale games with tens of thousands of users logged in at any given time can't be counted on to effectively self-manage. Conclusion? Control the environment. Just as Disneyland keeps its attractions clean and ejects any troublemakers from the park.
Trying to police and control your player base is a waste of time. 100,000 motivated subscribers will always find ways to circumvent arbitrary barriers and rules that game developers put in their way. Implementing these barriers steals valuable developer time and resources not only to implement these barriers but to also patch and maintain the barriers against their cunning player base. If you would instead give the player base and incentive to do the policing for you they'll do a far better job than a flotilla of developers could. I'll give you an example...
"In the land of Yore there lies a forest where the king's finest stag's graze. These stags are known throughout the world for their tasty meat and great horns both of which are highly sought after abroad (and are Yore's top exports). Now only the king and his servant's are allowed to kill stags in the forest as the stag population is cautiously controlled so as not to thin the heard too much. Commoners (controlled by player's) have been killing the stags illegally and ruining the game's economy. Do you...
A) Make the forest and no kill zone and technically implement this solution? Or
B) Deputize trustworthy members of the player base and pass laws against venison trading (punishable with prison terms for the character etc) by anyone except the king's men?
With A) your players will most likely figure out some clever way to either lure the stags out of the forest and kill them or figure out a hack which would allow them to kill stags in the forest. You'll end up spending all of your time fixing exploits that your players find and devs spend less and less time making the game more enjoyable and more time 'fixing' their game.
With B) you get an armed guard for the stags which never sleeps nor rests. Oh, and by the way you just made your game a lot more fun and interesting! Your player's are chasing dirty rotten thieves all over the forest and countryside to make them pay for trying to ruin their beloved land!
Some of you are probably wondering what stops a grief player from simply creating another account and griefing again? Simple, limit the number of player accounts a person can have per per credit card. In this way you limit grief players in the amount of trouble they can cause (although a little trouble can be fun and interesting). IMO it shouldn't be about trying to control user's and their experience. It should be about developer's injecting the right amount of reality into the game (where there are consequences for your actions) w/o removing the fun from the game. Game developer's: please allow players to police their own with the occasional encouragement and incentive from you to do so. The current model of "control the user's experience" is clearly broken and something needs to be done to fix it. MORGs are very costly to develop and company's don't like taking chances on unproven theories such as mine. I would very much like to see an atmosphere of experimentation and risk taking expand into the world of graphical MORGs much as was/is seen in the MUD community. This is one reason why I'm working with WorldForge. I would dearly love to promote an indie gaming scene where innovative games are created and interesting concepts tried. To take players where commercial game developers dare not tread.
G. Washington on Government "it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master."
Not that that's stopping people. I was involved with one group of people planning a persistent world set in the Forgotten Realms. And it wasn't the only one. But there were two big problems:
First, the game isn't designed to represent a persistent world, and the game system isn't designed to be played in real time. One spell per day? Hah! Who's going to play a first level wizard. There are some ways to get around this, but as of the last developer chat I attended, none of the developers had the time to worry about persistent world problems... they had enough on their plate already. And I'm sure it's only gotten worse. Some did express interest in going back after release (and after bug patches) and looking into a persistent world addon, but it was only talk. So, everytime we turned around, there was another hurdle to overcome, or question unanswered, specifically because we wanted a persistent world.
The other problem is cost. It costs a lot to run a server and provide the bandwidth necessary. How are you going to pay for it? Advertising? Monthly dues? Subscription fees? Sales of in-game items? Suggest any of these to your prospective audience and you'll get flamed and derided. The proposal to charge just $10/month pretty much ended our aspirations... the discussion forums where we GMs were coordinating and soliciting comments descended into namecalling and bagbiting, and I left. Eventually the project server went offline and never came back up.
The other thing we discovered was that there are a lot of people who don't want to roleplay -- they want to hack and slash, PK, or do both while playing a Drizzt clone. I can't tell you how many people introduced themselves with a character description of "Dark Elf with two scimitars" and half of those wanted to play an evil paladin or something equally far outside the rules. We got sick of munchkins even before we got our first look at the design tools.
Despite all that, there's going to be people using NWN to set up persistent worlds. But because it isn't designed for them, they aren't going to be very common nor very good. The best ones will probably be distributed over many interconnected servers with "portals" between them. However, until someone designs a toolkit for building persistent MUD-like worlds, DIY multiplayer online RPGs will be a thing of the future.
I can see the fnords!